Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Space Industry and Business News .




CHIP TECH
How to feed data-hungry mobile devices? Use more antennas
by Staff Writers
Houston TX (SPX) Aug 27, 2012


Demand for wireless data is projected to increase 18-fold in the next five years due to the growing popularity of data-hungry smartphones and tablets. To help meet the challenge, wireless researchers from Rice University, Bell Labs and Yale University are creating Argos, a multi-antenna technology that aims to dramatically increase network capacity by allowing cell towers to simultaneously serve dozens of customers on the same frequency. In August 2012, Rice unveiled a 64-antenna Argos prototype capable of simultaneously beaming signals to 15 users on the same frequency. View the video here.

Researchers from Rice University have unveiled a new multi-antenna technology that could help wireless providers keep pace with the voracious demands of data-hungry smartphones and tablets. The technology aims to dramatically increase network capacity by allowing cell towers to simultaneously beam signals to more than a dozen customers on the same frequency.

Details about the new technology, dubbed Argos, were presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's MobiCom 2012 wireless research conference in Istanbul. Argos is under development by researchers from Rice, Bell Labs and Yale University.

A prototype built at Rice this year uses 64 antennas to allow a single wireless base station to communicate directly to 15 users simultaneously with narrowly focused directional beams.

Thanks to the growing popularity of smartphones and other data-hungry devices, the demand for mobile data is expected to grow 18-fold within the next five years. To meet demand, wireless carriers are scrambling to boost network capacity by installing more wireless base stations and shelling out billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast on additional frequencies.

In tests at Rice, Argos allowed a single base station to track and send highly directional beams to more than a dozen users on the same frequency at the same time. The upshot is that Argos could allow carriers to increase network capacity without acquiring more spectrum.

"The technical term for this is multi-user beamforming," said Argos project co-leader Lin Zhong, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science at Rice. "The key is to have many antennas, because the more antennas you have, the more users you can serve."

Zhong said the theory for multi-user beamforming has been around for quite some time, but implementing technology has proven extremely difficult. Prior to Argos, labs struggled to roll out prototype test beds with a handful of antennas.

"There are all kinds of technical challenges related to synchronization, computational requirements, scaling up and wireless standards," he said. "People have really questioned whether this is practical, so it's significant that we've been able to create a prototype that actually demonstrates that this works."

Argos presents new techniques that allow the number of antennas on base stations to grow to unprecedented scales. The Argos prototype, which was built by Rice graduate student Clayton Shepard, uses an array of 64 antennas and off-the-shelf hardware - including several dozen open-access test devices called WARP boards that were invented at Rice's Center for Multimedia Communications.

In tests, Argos was able to simultaneously beam signals to as many as 15 users on the same frequency.

For wireless carriers, that performance would translate to more than a six-fold increase in network capacity. Zhong said the base-station design can be scaled up to work with hundreds of antennas and several dozen concurrent users, which would result in much higher capacity gains.

"There's also a big payoff in energy savings," Shepard said. "The amount of power you need for transmission goes down in proportion to the number of antennas you have. So in Argos' case, we need only about one-sixty-fourth as much energy to serve those 15 users as you would need with a traditional antenna."

Zhong and Shepard said Argos is at least five years away from being available on the commercial market. It would require new network hardware and a new generation of smartphones and tablets.

It might also require changes in wireless standards. Those are big hurdles, but Zhong said the potential benefits of multi-user beamforming technology make it a very likely next big step for the wireless industry.

"The bandwidth crunch is here, and carriers need options," Zhong said. "They're going to pay close attention to any new technologies that may allow them to serve more customers with fewer resources."

Research co-authors include Hang Yu and Narendra Anand, both of Rice; Li Erran Li and Tom Marzetta, both of Bell Labs; and Yang Richard Yang of Yale University. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, Bell Labs, Alcatel Lucent and the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research.

.


Related Links
Rice University
Computer Chip Architecture, Technology and Manufacture
Nano Technology News From SpaceMart.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








CHIP TECH
Future memory
Evanston IL (SPX) Aug 27, 2012
A new class of organic materials developed at Northwestern University boasts a very attractive but elusive property: ferroelectricity. The crystalline materials also have a great memory, which could be very useful in computer and cellphone memory applications, including cloud computing. A team of organic chemists discovered they could create very long crystals with desirable properties using jus ... read more


CHIP TECH
Is This Real or Just Fantasy? ONR Augmented-Reality Initiative Progresses

SciTechTalk: Tablets: Does size matter?

US braces for holiday clash of tech giants

Apple scores huge win over Samsung in patent case

CHIP TECH
Lockheed Martin Wins Role on Defense Information Systems Agency Program

Raytheon unveils cross domain strategy to securely access information via mobile devices

NATO Special Forces Taps Mutualink for Global Cross Coalition Communications

Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Integrated Receiver Circuit Under DARPA Program

CHIP TECH
NASA Administrator Announces New Commercial Crew And Cargo Milestones

Ariane 5s are on the move for Arianespace's upcoming missions

Readying the "boost" for Galileo satellites on Arianespace's next Soyuz mission at the Space

ASTRA 2F touches down in French Guiana for Arianespace's next Ariane 5 dual-passenger mission

CHIP TECH
Fourth Galileo satellite reaches French Guiana launch site

A GPS in Your DNA

Next Galileo satellite reaches French Guiana launch site

Raytheon completes GPS OCX iteration 1.4 Critical Design Review

CHIP TECH
Swiss fighter jet purchase details agreed despite criticism

India's first Embarer AWAC headed home

ReAgent Supports Space Balloon Project

Enstrom completes Thai helicopter delivery

CHIP TECH
Samsung to invest 779 mn euros in Dutch chipmaker ASML

How to feed data-hungry mobile devices? Use more antennas

Mini-camera with maxi-brainpower

Future memory

CHIP TECH
Landsat Data Continuity Mission Environmental Testing is Underway

Expert Analysis of Energy Infrastructure Using HiRes Satellite Imagery

Vecmap tracks the Asian bush mosquito

NASA Selects Combined Data Services Contract For Polar Satellites

CHIP TECH
Earthworms soak up heavy metal

Italians protest against pollution from steelworks

Vietnam, US begin historic Agent Orange cleanup

Worldwide increase of air pollution




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement